The Church at Ephesus
Tom Shrader examines Jesus' message to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7, praising their hard work, perseverance, and doctrinal discernment while confronting their loss of first love. He warns that churches focused on biblical truth and activity can become driven by duty rather than love for Christ, calling believers to remember, repent, and return to Christ-centered motivation.
“We study the word of God, so that we can know the God of the word.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: What Christ Says to the Church (Revelations)
Recorded: 2010
Duration: 41 min
Themes: love, perseverance, duty, motivation, repentance, remembrance, discernment, devotion, pastor, church leader, long time believer, losing spiritual passion, elder, struggling with routine faith, ministry burnout, mature christian
Scripture: Revelation 2:1-7, Acts 19, Acts 20, Psalm 139, 1 John 4, Genesis 3, Revelation 22
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church health, first love, doctrinal purity, biblical discernment, spiritual decline, christocentric worship, revelation
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles—that's what's important. Book of Revelation. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and guys will bring it to you. You go all the way to the back, see some maps, then go left—first book is the Book of Revelation.
Let me remind you what we're doing here for seven weeks now. We're asking ourselves a question: what would Jesus say to the church today? If Jesus were walking around in this day, 2010, speaking to church, what would He say? There's really a legitimate sense in which we don't have to question that. We don't have to speculate or wonder or even imagine. John Stott tells us that Christ reveals what He wants His church to be like at all times and in all places in this Book of Revelation.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ
Remember, here's how we started. Look at verse 1: "the revelation of Jesus Christ." That word revelation means unveiling, disclosing, uncovering. Jesus is the primary character here. He's communicating His vision, His desires, His thoughts, even His ultimate return to John who writes this book. This is John the disciple who Jesus loved. This is John who wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. This is John who wrote the gospel.
Jesus tells him, "Here's what I want you to do: write about the things that are right now, and then write to these churches, and then the balance of the book from chapter 4 on, write about the things that will come." So when we talk about the Book of Revelation, almost intuitively, we go right to the things that are going to happen. We go right to His return. But before He does that, He speaks really clearly to seven actual churches.
What you see throughout this book is His power and His might, His majesty, His holiness, His judgment, His love. We get His instruction, His direction, encouragement, advice, commendation, and condemnation to these churches. Now I think this is important: most scholars agree that these churches are representative—all seven of them—of seven types of churches that you'll see throughout the ages. Almost always, what's true corporately is true individually. What's true individually can be true corporately. So maybe even seven types of personality traits that we might find in the church, or leanings.
The Seven Churches of Revelation
Let me show you a couple of maps. This one's kind of blurry—you're going, "Well I can't see that"—but you can get the location with the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, in what is nowadays called Turkey. If we go to the second map, we get what we've talked about. The little island to the bottom of the screen—that's Patmos. That's where John is when he receives this vision, a little island about four miles long, six miles wide.
As I move into the mainland, I run into, in consecutive order as they're presented in this revelation, seven churches. These are actual churches, and there was a highway—major highway—that connected all of them. That's why we do metropolitan, cosmopolitan areas. There's Ephesus, and then we head north: Smyrna, Pergamum (or you may see Pergamos), and we head a little bit east to Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
Over the next seven weeks, we're going to study what Jesus has to say to each of those seven churches, again asking: what type of church are we? Is there one of those churches that might represent us, collectively? Within any church, you're going to have all of these character traits or attributes that Jesus identified. You're going to find them in individuals. But most often, most churches are going to have kind of a dominant character trait.
The Pattern of the Letters
Let's go ahead and read the passage beginning in chapter 2, verse 1, and we'll make a few comments along the way: "To the angel of the church at Ephesus." Remember, each of these messages begin with that very familiar kind of address to the recipient: "to the angel of the church at," and then you'll see the cities. Angel means messenger. This is in all likelihood the one who would be charged with taking the letter, communicating the letter to the people who would be there gathered in the church.
Right after that, Jesus identifies Himself. There's that familiar pattern. It's Jesus, and here's how He identifies Himself: "the one who holds the seven stars in His right hand and the one who walks among the seven lampstands." Often, that identity changes. There are some subtle changes, there are some similarities, but He's always emphasizing one attribute or one element of who He is, one characteristic. Most of the time, He emphasizes that because that's what that church needs to hear. It'll vary, but you come almost always in the broad sense to His majesty, His power, His holiness, His sovereignty, and He reminds the church of that.
The Commendation of Ephesus
Now verse two. Again, the pattern—remember what we said: recipient, then a strength, then a weakness, then an action that He wants you to take, and then a promise. That's the general flow. There are a couple deviations in the letter, but among three of the churches—Ephesus, Pergamos, and Thyatira—that's exactly the flow. So perfect example here.
He says this commendation: "I know your deeds, your toil and perseverance that you cannot tolerate evil men. You put to test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and they're found to be false. You have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and you have not grown weary." You'd love to stop right there. That sounds really good. You'd love to just stop right there, because man, He's saying, "Here's what I know. I got it. You work hard. You persevere. You're discerning. You don't grow weary."
The Condemnation
However, that's not the end. It's verse four: "But I have this against you"—commendation, now condemnation—"I have this against you. You've left your first..."
Christ's Authority Over the Churches
Verse four says, "Remember from where you've fallen, repent, and do the deeds you did first. Or else I'm coming, and I will remove the lampstand out of its place, unless you repent." Yet this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. We're not going to talk about them at all today—we'll talk about them later. They're a group, and we're not even totally clear on what their false teaching is or how they permeated and infiltrated the church. But they did. They're bad guys. They bring false doctrine, at its very least, which I also hate. You didn't like them, I don't like them.
Verse seven says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
The City of Ephesus
So we go back to verse one. He identifies Himself, the teaching elder, leader, the one who's going to deliver this—literally, deliver the mail. He's the one who's going to read this to the church at Ephesus.
Let me tell you a little bit about Ephesus. Of these cities in Asia Minor, it was the wealthiest, probably the most influential. It was a cosmopolitan area, considered the greatest city, called by one author "the greatest vanity fair of Asia." It was inland, with a harbor about three miles in, so it was a very protected area, very safe. This made it a critical seaport and a busy seaport. Just imagine what goes with a bunch of sailors coming in and out, and commerce coming in and out, and this central place that really is the convergence of four major highways—the one you looked at, and then three others that begin to tie these cities together.
So it was nicknamed the Market of Asia, or the Highway to Rome, or called in one place also the Highway of the Martyrs. Christians would be brought from this area as they were going to be shipped to Rome for either persecution and prosecution and martyrdom—maybe killed, maybe just enslaved. So it was a strategic city.
Robert Morris writes that the traveler from Rome landing in Ephesus would proceed up this magnificent avenue, 35 feet wide, lined with columns, and it led to the center of the city. So it was a great harbor, filled with commerce and business.
Political and Religious Context
It was politically a free city, which meant that it was not under Roman occupation, under Roman authority, but not under Roman occupation. So they were in a sense self-governed, except in a few exceptions, or if something critical was happening—maybe there would be a major event and Rome might send a governor and some occupying or ruling kind of force there. But by and large, it was a free city. They had earned that over the years.
It was also a religious hub. The Temple to Artemis, or to Diana, which is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was located in the center of the city. It was 425 feet long and 225 feet wide, with 120 columns. So if you get in your mind the stereotypical view of a Greek structure, that was it. This was obviously a pagan religion, central to its worship was prostitution, sexual immorality that was rampant. There were, again, literally thousands of priestesses that would practice out of this temple.
In Acts 19, you see Paul come into the area and he begins to preach the gospel, and Demetrius, the coppersmith, rises up because he was making these idols that would become iconic and points of worship. Now with Paul preaching, he's cutting into the profits. So Demetrius raises the people up against Paul. So persecution and opposition rises against Paul.
Understanding the Context
So that's the condition of the city. If you took New York and San Francisco and rolled them together, maybe throwing in a little Seattle and a little bit of LA, that's kind of what you have. It's just this major hub of activity, business, politics, commerce, religion—but a pagan religion. And then God moves and He pulls a remnant right out of that. But they're in this city.
So we can learn a lot from these seven cities. We can learn a lot about how we're not just to look at ourselves, evaluate ourselves, but how do we interact with the community around us and draw principles from that.
Christ's Sovereign Control
So He says this: "To the angel of the church at Ephesus," verse one, "these things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand," the seven messengers and the seven lampstands, the seven churches.
Now there's two Greek words that are available for the word "hold." One would be to hold like I would hold this music stand. I have a hold of it and it wouldn't take much to shake it away from you, but you get the sense. I kind of hold it, control it a little bit. The other would be—and I don't have a coin, I never have a coin, let's see if they've got anything in here, I don't have any in here either—but like if I were to take a penny and put it in there and hold it that way, that would be the other word. So one would be like this: I have a hold of it, but it's a little bit shaky. This would be I have absolute control. You can't get at it. That's the word He uses.
This is the One who holds the churches, who has them under His sovereign control. And therein we discover safety and security and protection. The idea of His continual presence in our life.
God's Complete Knowledge
He says this in verse two: "I know your works." That's what the psalmist writes about in Psalm 139: "Where can I go to hide from you, God? If I go up, you're there. I go down, you're there. You're ahead of me. You're behind me. You know what I'm going to say before I say it." That's what He's reminding them. I have absolute control and authority. I hold you. And I know all about you. You can't fool me. There's nothing to hide.
We see this all the time when you pray to God. There's no reason to not be absolutely honest because you're not going to give Him any information He doesn't already know. I'm praying not for His benefit but for mine.
So I can begin to see my life as He sees it. Call sin what He calls sin. Begin to see the things and the way He's working in my life in a positive way, beneficial way. But also I can just see myself as I really am. I don't have a facade.
In any interpersonal relationship, you're always holding back a little. No one knows everything. But God does. And this is not designed to be a source of fear but a source of comfort. He knows everything there is to know about you and He loves you anyway. It's not like one day He's going to discover something and say, "Well, you're gone." He already knows it. And He already loves you.
Christ's Commendation of Ephesus
So He says, "I know your deeds." And He identifies three here and they're really positive. He says, "I know your deeds or your labor or your toil. I know your patience. And I know that you cannot bear those that are evil. You've tested those who say they're apostles and they're not. You found them out to be liars. You persevered. You have patience. And you labored for my namesake and you haven't grown weary."
This is really good. He says, "Here's what I got. Here's what I see. Here's what I know to be absolutely true. You work hard. You persevere. You discern."
You're busy. You're active. When they see a line in the bulletin that says volunteers needed in the bookstore, you got to fight each other to get in there to volunteer. I just thought I'd throw that in. But that's the way it is—a busy church. There's action going on. The bulletin is full.
A Church of Tireless Workers
They're energetic. They're serving, sweating. They're involved, diligent. They're evangelizing. They're teaching the young. They're helping the helpless. They're engaged.
The word labor or toil means to work to the point of exhaustion. As one commentator says, this is the work that takes everything of mind and sinew that a man can put into it. These are hardworking followers of Christ—engaged, busy.
Not like that church we're going to see at the end at Laodicea—not lukewarm. They're active, man. They're not like Sardis that's dead. They're not like Thyatira that's corrupted. They're not like Pergamos that's compromised. These are hardworking people that persevere.
Steadfast Endurance
There's no quit in them. I wrote the words—it's kind of a word I'm into now—they're steadfast. They're patient. They're enduring. Again, they have what one author calls "triumphant fortitude."
They knew it was bad. They hated it. They'd be snubbed. Again, think of the community. Think of that hybrid—San Francisco, New York, Seattle, LA, all rolled into one. So they're in there now and they begin to teach this truth. This giant temple that the vast majority of the people would worship in—they're down here in the street and they're saying, "No, that's false. This is true."
When I was a kid, I remember one of the first toys we had when we were younger was a thing you blew up. There was a guy's face on it. He has boxing gloves and had sand in the bottom. And you take it—pop, pop. No matter how hard you hit it, no matter how hard you punched it, it eventually would come back up. That's what these people are.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—they're up on the hill. They're looking and Sundance says, "Who are those guys?" It was the church at Ephesus he was looking at. They just keep coming and coming and coming. They do not grow weary. They won't stop.
Discernment and Protection of Truth
And they're discerning. When Paul, in Acts chapter 20, Paul is saying goodbye to the elders of the church at Ephesus. And Luke records these words: "For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore watch, remember, that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone, night and day with tears."
Those are his last words to this church: "Watch out. Protect the doctrine." And he doesn't even go out there. He says, "This is going to happen in here. There's going to be somebody that comes along and they're teaching a class over there. Somebody that's got a pulpit over here. Somebody that has some platform. And they'll introduce some sort of what Paul describes as perverse things."
It may be flat contradiction. It may have a subtlety to it. It may just take some nuance and move it. Something. So you watch out. Well, they got it. That's the point.
The point is, as Jesus reveals the condition of the church at Ephesus to John, Jesus is saying they got that. Here's ballpark 60 years later, and you're hardworking, and you persevere, and you've got discernment. Nobody can fool you.
The Remarkable Pedigree of Ephesus
Think a little bit about their pedigree. I was in a church a while ago, and in the lobby—it would never even occur to me to do this, I don't know why, maybe it's just generational—were the pictures of like the founding pastor, and then every teaching pastor, lead pastor, senior pastor they've had since then. And I just found myself watching and going, "Golly, this had to just be dull. It had to be pretty bleak." Now, that might be a little judgmental. But I mean, I just looked at it, and I thought, "Well, I wouldn't like that."
And so someday, they're going to hear, "Well, what was the thing here? Well, there was Tom, and that was not much, and then they'll run through the litany." Well, think of the DNA of the church at Ephesus. The main squeeze when they started is Paul. So that's three big years right there. That's a pretty good foundation.
And then shortly after that, Priscilla and Aquila come in with Apollos. So those might be kind of new names to you, but if you're looking for a couple, and you go, "Boy, we want a married couple to model ourselves after, we want to find them in the New Testament," you
basically have two, Ananias and Sapphira. That's not very good. And Priscilla and Aquila, very good, but there's not much information there. With them came Apollos, who was apparently the spectacular orator. So remember in Corinth, Paul's addressing a problem, because some of the people were saying, "Oh, I follow Paul." And others were saying, "Not me, I follow Apollos." So this is a major guy.
After they're gone, Paul says, "I need to send somebody to you, but I got one guy, he's kind of head and shoulders above everybody else, so I'm going to send him, his name is Timothy." Then tradition says, before John went to Patmos, he hung out and did the teaching at Ephesus.
Imagine John Teaching at Ephesus
So think about that. For me, I think of Christmas and Easter messages, those are just—I find those always really hard to do. Christmas, a little bit easier, because you've got kind of some variety, but on Easter, you're pretty well wherever you go, it's going to have the resurrection in it. I'm for the resurrection, but there's just kind of so many ways to do that creatively on an Easter.
But imagine Easter morning in the church at Ephesus when John's teaching. He's going, "Let me tell you what this was like. Let me tell you what those three years were like, because I was following Him for three years. You've heard a bunch about Thomas, let me give you the skinny on Thomas. Let me tell you about Peter."
"And then, let me tell you about that last supper, because we were really confused. Judas got up and left, and we kind of thought that was part of the big deal, and it seemed like maybe he was part of this, but we weren't really sure. And then hours later, I was there, and I saw Him beaten, and I saw Him crucified. I can't tell you, those three days in there, we were just—we were despondent. We didn't know what to do, we're confused. We'd invested everything we had, not just dollars, but our life in Him."
"And then on this morning, there's a knock at the door, and these gals say, 'You need to come and look at this thing.' And I go blowing out of there, and I beat Peter, because he's older than me, and I beat him to this tomb. I looked in, but I didn't go in. Then Peter went in, and it was empty. And the next thing we know, Jesus has disappeared."
Imagine that. I mean, that's gripping right there. That's this church at Ephesus. That's their heritage. Like I said, they got it.
The Church's Response to Their Heritage
So consequently, that's what they were. They worked really, really hard, study, study, study, persevere, persevere, persevere. So you read that, and you can almost sense—it'd be kind of interesting to have the camera on the crowd, because you read that, and you can just see them go, jaw set, persevere, we know, we're the best, we're right, we're correct.
And then you get to verse 4: "Nevertheless"—some of your translations will say "but"—"but I have this against you, you've left your first love." Whoa. Hard work, A+. Perseverance, A+. Discernment, A+.
Well, let's step back for a second. That's pretty impressive. Most people in a church like ours would say that's really kind of pretty big right there. Remember we said each of these churches kind of has a dominant trait? Years ago, when we first looked at this, I think it was like 10 years ago, and we talked about it internally—it'd be interesting to do it now with some of the staff—I would have said Ephesus would have been the church that represented East Valley Bible Church. Ephesus represents that really good, solid Bible teaching church.
The Problem: You've Lost Your First Love
He said, "But you got a problem, and the problem isn't how hard you work, and the problem isn't that you quit—you don't grow weary—and the problem isn't that you don't have discernment, it's you've lost your first love."
I don't know—and again, Paul has the advantage, as he writes, because he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which has to be a huge plus—but when Paul closes his letter to the church at Ephesus, he writes this: "Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with uncorruptible love." Now, obviously writes under the power of the Holy Spirit, but just humanly speaking, people, hang with me now.
People, churches that tend to be hardworking, Bible teaching, persevering, discerning churches tend to be low on the love side. They would say it this way: "We want to teach truth and grace." That's how they would say it. So truth becomes really a thing.
The Danger of Moving Truth's Boundaries
So let's say, for sake of example, that this is truth, and oftentimes what happens is this is truth, so we really want to make sure we don't mess this up. So we're going to move the boundaries in this way. So now we've created these little buffer areas of truth, but we're not going to go out there because if we get too close, we're going to move outside of truth, and now we who are in here have a real problem with those that are in the buffer area because we're going, "You're out there, you're out there, you're out there. This is really dangerous."
Let's just go now. Let's get in your grill a little bit, mine too. Let's put it in our context. These are people that are studying. They're the ones that signed up for the institute classes. They never fail. They've been through all the Bible study fellowship. They know all the precepts. They've been in every class we've ever had. Their Bibles are all marked up. If you get in their car and you punch the memory sets, it's all Christian radio, listen to Christian teaching, Christian radio all day long.
Anything wrong with that? Maybe. How about this? You wouldn't hear this normally on a Sunday: I'm not sure everybody needs another Bible study. Do we need to study the Bible? Yeah. But at some point, to what end? To argue about the nuances? To just go on and on and on about this?
I had a friend who was telling me this story. He's leaving his office to go to
a Bible study. And one of the guys in his office is saying, "I need to talk to you. My life's falling apart. I need help. I need help. And I'm desperate here." And he said, "I can't talk to you now. I got to go." He goes to a Bible study. I love this—God is good. He goes to a Bible study on the Good Samaritan. Well, he just walked by. You don't need a Bible study. He just walked by the guy. You just stiffed the guy in the office who really needed you.
Again, I mean, I know there are some times when on a Sunday you might have something more important to do than be here. You may have a neighbor. You may have somebody who's hurting. You maybe have somebody in your family, somebody in your sphere of influence. And all of a sudden they ring you up. And it just seems to me, and we have to be careful—I got that. I understand all the boundaries and all that. But here's somebody calling you saying, "I'm really hurting here." And you're saying, "I don't have time. I got to get to church." That doesn't seem right.
Now maybe I can go, "Hey, can we meet at 1?" "Yeah." Okay, we're fine. But if they go, "No, I'm dying. I need you over this place. I need you right now." See, that's what's happening to this church. They're busy, busy, busy.
The Danger of Knowledge Without Love
But I think doctrine, truth, all important, really important. Here you go. Radical discipleship. I'm down with it. I've been studying and teaching for 25 years. I'm not criticizing that in any way, shape, or form. I'm just telling you, I know human nature, and I clearly know what the scripture says. And the more I know, the tendency, if inertia is not broken, the tendency is to be puffed up. That's what He's saying.
Think about it. You're hardworking. You're studying. You're going to the classes. You're checking the boxes. You've color-coded your Bible. You've done everything there is to do with this thing. Got all your tabs, all your memories. I was teaching in Cannon Beach a couple weeks ago, and a guy came up, and I was just alluding—I was bumping against this point. And a guy came up kind of laughing, and he says, "It was so funny this morning." He said, "I was in a real hurry, and I have this list I go through. I do a devotional study, and then I have a section of scripture I read, and I have this little procedure every day." And he said, "It was so interesting, because I was obsessed. I'm obsessed with getting through this material today, but I have no idea what it said or what it means to me."
And I get that, because I can get into that really quickly. But I think it's far more important for you to let God speak to you through His word than to say, "I need to get through chapter four, two, and 12 today." I got nothing—there's nothing wrong. Is there anything wrong with the Bible reading plan? Of course not. Is there anything wrong with having a quiet time? Of course not. Is there anything wrong with going to Bible studies and being engaged and going to church? Of course not. But that's not the end, that's the means.
I can learn—this is really important—I can learn, but still not be obedient. Learning doesn't equal obedience. God puts all of these things in my life to study and all of these opportunities. But the end is not just to study them. The end is to have them impact my life.
Leaving Your First Love
Nevertheless, I have this against you: You've left your first love. Your motivation, perhaps, your love for the cross. This is love, John says—the same John that writes this. This is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and gave His son a sacrifice. He uses the word propitiation—the propitiation for our sin. There's love. There was action there. So you are a God lover today because He first loved you. That's clearly not who we are by nature.
When Jesus appears, the risen Jesus appears to Peter, He says, "Do you love me?" Peter gives Him an answer. "Do you love me?" Gives Him an answer. "Do you love me?" If He was appearing to one of these people at Ephesus, or the church at Ephesus, He'd say, "Do you love me?" And they'd say, "Well boy, do we work hard." "Do you love me?" "Can we persevere?" "Do you love me?" "We can slice it and dice it, and we know all the subtleties in the Greek, and 'hold' could mean this, or 'hold' could mean that."
How's this first sentence? Chuck Swindoll writes about the church at Ephesus: "They knew how to defend the doctrines of the word, but they forgot who the doctrines pointed to. They could win any debate. But they lost their first love." That love of Christ. The love of Christ that compels them. The love of Christ that motivates me. The love of Christ that drives me.
When Study Becomes an End in Itself
It's so easy, isn't it? Maybe it's autobiographical. Maybe none of you have experienced it—I doubt it, but I mean, some have. But I can all of a sudden get so into this, and frankly, begin to study the scripture, and God just opens it up, that I become almost—blown away, addicted's the wrong word, but addicted to the study of it. And I study, and study, and study, and James comes along and says, "You need to be a doer of the word, not just a hearer."
It's not done when you can parse this. It's not done when you know what it means. You need to know what it means, so that my heart is transformed, and my head is informed, so my life is radically changed. If my life isn't radically changed, then these other things are misguided. And apparently, they had that at one point, and some things happened.
Chuck Holmes used to use the phrase, when he first became a Christian, he was "ignorance on fire." I always said that was an interesting phrase. So he would go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I would have said it this way. Early on, I had Jesus in every sentence. They didn't know if I was evangelizing or swearing, but all I did was talk about Jesus, all right? I always thought that seemed backwards. It's almost like, I think we're saying, when God first saved me, I just talked about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and then somehow, I became more sophisticated, or more mature, more slick. The knowledge got in the
We study the Word of God so that we can know the God of the Word. Now, if you're sitting there and thinking that this maybe describes somebody you know, what do you do? Three things, verse five: remember, repent, and then do the works.
Remember Where You Started
Remember, look back. It can be harmful, it can be helpful. Remember where you started. Kind of trace back—where did this amazing study in life in Christ become dry to me? Thomas Goodwin talks about remember. He says this: "a turn up and down of my past life with a broken heart."
I got an email a while ago from a friend. "Tom, just dropping you a note, hope you're doing well. All's well here. Wanted you to know you're in my prayers. Encouragement, encourage the church. Wow, what an awesome God we serve. Thank you. If there's anything I can do for you, let me know. Thanks." Here's how he signs this: "Just another poster child for amazing grace."
See, that's who you were. I was teaching at Cannon Beach, and there was a guy wearing a shirt that said, "I'm the wretch the song's about." That's who we are—we're the wretch the song's about. Sometimes I can study and study and study, and I can go, "Gosh, yes, that's back there in my past somewhere." That needs to stay fresh in me. Not in some sort of way where I'm just immersed and swept away in my own debauchery, but I'm reminded who I was.
When we were on vacation, Susan and I, before we came back, we had this little kind of haphazard meeting scheduled with some guys who were up in Flagstaff, just to come in and to hear what they were doing. It was very loose. Now that I've done it, I'm still not exactly sure why I was there, other than just to say hi and maybe share some words and ideas. This one guy said something I thought was really interesting. He said, "I find myself saying to God, 'God, here I am, and I'm still sorry. God, here I am, I'm still sorry about that.'"
Living in the Tension of Grace and Truth
Somehow I need to have that humility that's associated, and brokenness that's associated with that, but I don't have to live in that "I'm still sorry" because I'm in a forgiven world. See how these things get mixed up? I don't think it's very hard at all to unpack and see how this can get mixed up. If I'm a truth guy, I'm just really afraid that grace will turn into license. If I'm a grace guy, I'm afraid that truth is going to make me brittle and hard, be a Pharisee.
But God calls us to kind of live in that tension of the grace and the truth. So I get it right sometimes, and not right other times, and sort of right in the other times, and that's where He calls you. Just think about that. You're the wretch the song's about.
Repent and Return
So I remember, and I repent. It means to change my mind, change direction, turn around, don't just keep going. I talk about this all the time. I know when the girls were small, I used to talk to them about it a lot. Going with the flow is good if the flow's going where you want to go. I'm all in on going with the flow. I'm not looking to be arguing and fighting and debating just for the sake of expended energy. It's good to go with the flow if the flow's going where I'm going. But if I'm not, I need to repent, turn around.
Take the responsibility, head the other way, fix it. Understand that love is way beyond an emotion here. It's a commitment. It's the thing that drives me. And repeat, do the things I did. If it was the love of Christ that motivated me, then I need to let it motivate me again. I begin to think about the cross. In just a few minutes in the conference center now, we're done, but here in the chapel, you're going to have your time of communion and you're going to have your time of remembering. This is really well tied together as the Holy Spirit did it. Even as you listen to the songs today, you'll hear about the love of Christ and the love that God has for us. I repeat it, I go back.
A Warning from History
Let me give you this as a close. This is the church in Ephesus that's hardworking, persevering, discerning. A couple of centuries later, a traveler comments on coming to Ephesus. He said, "I found only three Christians there and those sunken in such ignorance and apathy as to scarcely have heard the names of Paul and John."
So even this hardworking, persevering, truth, truth, truth church—that's not a guarantee. I remember being in a staff meeting one day with the pastors, and we were just talking about different things and talking about the future. One of them talked about our doctrinal statement and the things that we believe and we hold to. He said, "You know, those are givens." I said, "Stop. Those are not givens. They may be givens right now, but the next group in, the next people in, if we're not careful, we'll lose those."
So I don't want to lose those, but I don't want that to be all we care about. Scarcely found anybody who knew the names of Peter and Paul.
The Promise
And then the promise. He says in verse seven, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And to him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life." Last time we saw that was back in Genesis 3, and we were prohibited from it. But when we get to Revelation 22, we're now invited to participate in it.
So is that you? Does that fit in you or us as a church? Hardworking, diligent, persevere, discerning, know the truth, but something's kind of empty there, there's something missing. I'm driving more by duty than by love. What He's saying is: remember, repent, go back, study the Word of God, don't stop that, study the Word of God, but fall back in love with the God of the Word.
But the love of Christ, the love that Christ has for you, becomes the driving motive in your life, not duty. You know, all of a sudden I'm driven to this—and again, you understand, we don't make any money on this, we're trying to provide this as a service. All of a sudden I'm driven to radical discipleship. I'm starting to look at my life and to see what happens when my heart
and my head are changed and my hands begin to be given to Him, live for Him.
Now, let me pray this. Tim comes to lead us in communion here in the chapel, and then the band comes to lead us in a time of worship.
Father, thank You for these amazing, wonderful truths. I pray that we would have ears to hear and that we would repent and remember, and that we would react, we would be drawn and driven by our first love, that we would think of You and we would study this Word so that we might know You and know Your Son and know Your Spirit. God, would You have Your way in our life? We ask it in Christ's name, amen.